Shoulder Angel

I secretly have a shoulder angel. Metaphorically, of course. That little voice in my head that constantly reminds me of the things that I should be doing, nagging me to make right choices, all that fun business. Sure, some people might call it their "conscience", their "gut instinct"--there are a lot of names for it, but I just like calling it my shoulder angel. Partially because of the great scenes in Disney's The Emperor's New Groove where Kronk has arguments with his little shoulder angel and devil. That scene really cracks me up. I also feel that it is accurate, for me at least. Sometimes it feels like there are two parts of me that want me to go in different directions. One side tells me to get my homework done, the other side says to procrastinate it a little longer. Since I am obviously not doing my homework right now, it is rather obvious that I don't always listen to just one side or the other--though life would be much simpler if I could just tune one of the two voices out. 

Image Copyright Disney

In the end, however, I have always found that the times in my life when I am the most miserable are when I'm not listening to that little shoulder angel nearly as much as I should be. If I'm feeling empty inside and down, I've pretty much always found that it was because I was either doing something that I shouldn't, or that I wasn't doing something that I should have been. In other words, I wasn't listening to my shoulder angel. Of course, there are always things that just happen in life that throw off your groove, and can cause you to be unhappy--the unexpected death of a loved one, an unfortunate accident, or even just when you make a good decision and are persecuted for it. There are plenty of things in this word to get you down, without you even making a single mistake. Pile all of your shortcomings and blunders on top of that, and pretty quick you're up to your neck in emotional quicksand. 

So what can you do? How can you rise above all this nasty business and actually feel good about yourself? The way I see it, there are two possible solutions. Firstly, you can numb yourself to the pokings and proddings of that little shoulder angel of yours. After a while, you won't notice the constant nagging at all, and you won't feel one teensy bit sorry when you do something that you know you shouldn't have. Sure, you might feel a little empty inside, but at least you won't always feel like someone has a tug-of-war going over your decisions, right? You can just do what you want and call it good. I like to think of it as an emotional callous. Just by nature, our bodies can create these callouses--both physically and emotionally. A great example of an emotional callous would be the one that my brother is developing by working in a call center. He told me that there isn't a single expletive under the sun that he hasn't had screamed at him over the phone, and he's developing an emotional callous against angry people yelling at him. It just doesn't bother him as much as it used to. The same applies with the shoulder angel. If you get used to brushing him off and ignoring him, before long you don't even notice him.

The second thing that you can do, seems only natural--just listen to the little shoulder angel. Sure, sometimes that angel nudges you to do things that are hard and painful, but in the end you can have the satisfaction of knowing that you did what you thought was right. People are imperfect, and all of us are going to make mistakes. Of course we won't always listen to our shoulder angels perfectly, and we will know it when we aren't. In my experience, however, the best thing you can possibly do is never numb your conscience. Don't allow the wool to be pulled over your eyes just so that your shoulder angel will shut up for a while. In the long run it will only cause you more grief and pain.